Of course the question is all about fantasy, and I know whatever rider I picked I could never be, and if I picked a rider I would correct whatever wrongs he did and never do those, again in the name of fantasy, so I would want to be Greg Lemond, but I would avoid hunting! I think if he hadn't been shot he could have won at least 4 and probably 5 TdF's and maybe even 6 by winning in 1987 and 1988 which was the two years he missed due to the hunting accident and might have been in just good enough shape to win his 6th in 91 even though he lost that year some of that could have been from the effects of 35 shotgun pellets still in his heart which were slowly poisoning him which perhaps didn't allow enough capacity or made him more tired than usual a few years down the road? It has been proven with him that if he rides a bike now hard for more than hour something is going on from those pellets, they call them leaking, so he limits his riding to just an hour a day.

froze wrote:Of course the question is all about fantasy, and I know whatever rider I picked I could never be, and if I picked a rider I would correct whatever wrongs he did and never do those, again in the name of fantasy, so I would want to be Greg Lemond, but I would avoid hunting! I think if he hadn't been shot he could have won at least 4 and probably 5 TdF's and maybe even 6 by winning in 1987 and 1988 which was the two years he missed due to the hunting accident and might have been in just good enough shape to win his 6th in 91 even though he lost that year some of that could have been from the effects of 35 shotgun pellets still in his heart which were slowly poisoning him which perhaps didn't allow enough capacity or made him more tired than usual a few years down the road? It has been proven with him that if he rides a bike now hard for more than hour something is going on from those pellets, they call them leaking, so he limits his riding to just an hour a day.

I would like to be LeMonster too; I am pretty much the exact same height/weight/build as Greg was in his prime but have a VO2 max about 40% lower... Would be amazing to have had that incredible talent that he did.

1.75, used to be super skinny at like 58kg. Now I weigh about 66kg, I've put on a little fat but also some muscle. Always had a good kick going uphill and now that I've put on some weight I have gotten a lot stronger, but still not good enough to have a kick to be proud of on the flat. So probably a slightly weaker puncheur wouldn't be too far off, definitely one for the Ardennes more than Flanders though. Always found it difficult to ride over cobbles and/or gravel. I like to get out of the saddle too, so losing traction makes it difficult.

Of course I'd love to be a jack of all trades, but that's not very realistic.

jsem94 wrote:1.75, used to be super skinny at like 58kg. Now I weigh about 66kg, I've put on a little fat but also some muscle. Always had a good kick going uphill and now that I've put on some weight I have gotten a lot stronger, but still not good enough to have a kick to be proud of on the flat. So probably a slightly weaker puncheur wouldn't be too far off, definitely one for the Ardennes more than Flanders though. Always found it difficult to ride over cobbles and/or gravel. I like to get out of the saddle too, so losing traction makes it difficult.

Of course I'd love to be a jack of all trades, but that's not very realistic.

I would love to be 1.75 at 58kg, cyclingwise. I have the upper body of a 1.75 person, but the legs of a 1.90'er unfortunately. Just forget about the flat, let those heavy bastards have their fun out there.

Dr. Watson wrote:Dont know if there has already been a thread like this or if I should put it in here but I am curious to hear from u guys what type of pro rider would you want to be? Do you want to be a climber in grand tours or would you rather win Paris Roubaix? You can share your thoughts and maybe dreams on here

I'd like to be an independently wealthy pro rider. Only problem with that is that I'd be telling the DS to get stuffed too often.

I'd want to be an exciting rider; someone who could win races in all different kinds of ways, and who'd be useful to my team when I wasn't trying to win myself.I'd probably be a terrible rider; someone who could never win anything, and who'd be totally useless to my team anyway.

I would probably want to be a climber. I've always liked mountains very much since I went on holidays to Switzerland with my parents as a kid. Sometimes during the summers when the TDF was on, as a kid, I would imagine climbing some epic mountain pass while riding my bike (which requires a lot of imagination in the Netherlands). I also can't deny imagining to be Armstrong while riding my bike as a kid.

But 'alas, then I grew up and became 190cm and 80kg. I used to be really skinny though, but I did some more sports than just cycling. Maybe if I focused solely on cycling I could've remained borderline underweight and become a Froome-like climber?

Nahh, these days I like the classics best anyway and I've had some experience with cobbles (mostly cobbled climbs) in Belgium by now, and I actually kinda liked doing cobbles, so yeah cobbled classic rider it is.

Well, 1.70m, 67kg. I love dueling in a race up a nice long climb, but I'm better off with long solo efforts in sucky conditions, so realistically I'd probably hope to be a man for the classics, maybe time trials and pulling on the front of a group as well. If I could pick I'd want to be a Stephen Cummings sort, not so so good that anyone's too concerned if I go on the attack, but good enough on most terrain that I could pick my days and pretty consistently make something work.

Since this is fantasy I can race in the men's peloton. I'd want to be a Cancellara type rider. A great ITT specialist and cobbled classics specialist. I'd want to race for Movistar and be one of Valverde's very trusted domestiques. Be able to actually keep them in the right spots when there are cross winds and pull the team in the TTTs. Be able to help a bit in the mountains, but at some point will fall back to a grupeto to get to the finish of those stages. I'd want to win Paris-Roubiax, Flanders, Strade Bianche, the ITT World's rainbow jersey, Olympic ITT gold, ITT pro log and yellow at the Tour, TTT pro log and maybe be allowed to cross the finish line first to wear the red for a day. Who knows, maybe help my team leader finally win Amstel. Help my team leader get that record number of Vuelta podiums and any other races he's decided to race.In reality, possibly still be a TT specialist, but a domestique in the women's peloton.

What I would want to be? Thats difficult. When I was young I was always convinced I would be a climber and thats what I was most motivated by, the big mountain stages and the climbers. I would always try to climb like Andy Schleck, I thought he looked amazing on the bike. But as years have gone by, I honestly would prefer to be the kind of rider who could win a variety of races (mainly classics), with the Ronde van Vlaanderen as my speciality. So Im thinking of rider types like GVA, Gilbert and Kwiatkowski. I have really grown to love these races and coupled with the fact that thats the kind of terrain we have in Denmark and I always race in, thats my motivation when I go hard on the small climbs. I'd also be too big for the mountains and probably also L-B-L with my 74 kg and 182 cm, but Strade Bianche, Amstel Gold, RVV, E-3, Omloop would be well within my reach.

In Gran Canaria I discovered once again that with my 18,0 BMI, around Contador's and Froome's ones, just to mention two casual examples, it's still very hard to race up a climb. Especially since it's about watts and measurements. But I'm still pretty fine in that respect. Especially on gradients above 12% with my 67 kg (off season weight!!!) almost everyone has a hard time holding my wheel when I'm standing on the pedals. Continuing the effort is something quite different, though.

In my younger years I was a strong rouleur but on a good day could climb pretty well on my trusty Reynolds 653 custom frame and tubulars. I'd like to be a rider like Vincenzo Nibali but maybe without that team car holding incident that blemished his reputation. Wins all three grand Tours, a superb bike handler, descender and can win less suited monuments in style such as on the weekend. The complete cyclist. Note: I am not old enough to appreciate Eddie Merckx